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Hotels with altitude: four of the best

Kulmhotel Gornergrat Switzerland At 10,000ft the fortress-like Kulmhotel Gornergrat is the highest hotel in the Swiss Alps. Completed in 1907, the 22-room hotel was built to accommodate the huge influx of visitors brought by the extension of the electric rack railway from Zermatt to the Gornergrat ridge in 1898. Today, you don't really come here to walk or ski but to enjoy the glorious half-hour train ride from Zermatt and to gaze out at the extraordinary surrounding landscape that includes 29 mountains over 13,000ft (there are only 46 in the whole of Switzerland). The hotel has two distinct towers, each housing a round suite. In 1996 domes were built on both and telescopes installed, turning the top floors into observatories for scientists to monitor the galaxies. Today, the hotel is a good three-star, with light, airy bedrooms, two restaurants - the fine-dining Vis-à-vis and the more relaxed Panorama Self, which share a fantastic outdoor terrace - a cluster of shops and a candlelit chapel. Doubles from about £205 on a half-board basis (0041 27 966 64 00; gornergrat-kulm.ch
).